almost lovers always do
by WhenLighteningStrikes
Summary: She first saw him on a Tuesday. Shane/Caitlyn -oneshot.


_It's a kinda gift to D-R-O-W-N-I-N-S-E-Q-U-I-N-S for being a wonderful, totally understanding person!_

_DISCLAIMER: Heh. Ya think?_

_Happy New Year everybody! _

_ETA: I'm kind of editing some of my old fics because I can absolutely not even look at them without cringing, so this is probably a completely different fic from what you may have read earlier, and hopefully doesn't suck. (It also increased by, like, a thousand words. This is why I never reread my fics.)_

* * *

_We're only made of water, sand and stone_

* * *

[She first sees him on a Tuesday.]

**...**

He's standing amidst a horde of admirers, and she's sneaking glances over her book, trying to catch a glimpse without making it too obvious. Her hearts thuds every time she hears him laugh. It's the moment where she'd carry out a conversation in her head to the tune of _god, what's wrong with you, _but then maybe she'd have to look for an answer, and she isn't there yet.

She's fallen for Shane Gray, the golden bad-boy of the music industry, at first sight. Like twenty five million other people who've also probably fallen for him at first sight. Life doesn't get any more unoriginal than that.

She fights it. She watches the sensible girls she'd known rushing out to fulfill his every want (_your wish is my command) _and she makes loud condescending remarks about _some _people who think it's their birthright to treat other like slaves. She references the American Civil War for good measures; uses all the dates she's ever learnt up for her history class. (She wonders if he heard.)

He does hear, and he turns to look at her, that ever-irritating smirk never leaving his face. His eyes travel down and then back up to meet hers.

She follows the path his eyes took, and realizes that her book is upside down.

/

[He first talks to her on a Tuesday.]

**...**

She's been hearing alarming stories all throughout the season about the various ways in which the girls at camp are trying to seduce him. The most frequently used method seems to be to tell him to zip up their dresses. Always dresses and all with zippers that mysteriously get stuck whenever he's in their cabins. She saw a movie like that once (they all probably saw a movie like that once); and she can't recall the actors or the name, but she remembers thinking it was kind of hot. She wants the slow, burning moment of someone else's fingers on the zipper, just like in the movie. She wants a lot of things these days.

She'd try that sometime, but for that she'd have to wear a dress. And she'd have to admit she's trying, and she isn't there yet. She's a lot of places, but not quite there.

Anyway, he hasn't made a move on any of them yet, and watching him with Nate she idly wonders whether maybe he's a bowler for the other team.

Tess, her (_best_) friend, dispels that illusion.

They're dressing in the same cabin for the beach party at the last day of Camp Rock, and Tess insists on telling her all the finer details of her evening (_night_) with Shane, till she's ready to scream.

Tess catches in on her expression. She always did have a knack for reading peoples' minds. Especially when she could use them for her benefit.

"Don't tell me you're in love with him," her grin widens, "And he hasn't ever talked to you? Poor darling! Why didn't you _tell _me? I would have introduced you guys, and I definitely wouldn't have …" she pauses, delicately, "if I'd known it would hurt you."

"I'm not in love with him." she snaps, because she's not, she doesn't even know if she believes in love, "He's an arrogant jerk who thinks the world belongs to him just because he can sing. It's not like he's curing cancer; although I bet he thinks his smile does that for him or something, the sheer amount he smirks."

Tess looks at her with disbelief (and comprehension. Oh God, not that, anything but that) and she rushes out of the cabin without even waiting for Tess to complete her sentence, "Your dress…"

She meets him on the way. She's about to hurry past when he mockingly remarks, "Your zip seems to be stuck." And too late she realizes what Tess had been saying about her dress.

The thing about movies is; they're fictional. Fictional as in _not real_. Not real as in _it doesn't fucking happen_, okay. And when it happens, it's this. And she'd like to be anything but. Anything but the awkward pause of being a teenager in...something with a guy she even doesn't know outside her TV screen. She's definitely in something.

"Want me to help?"

She hates him in the moment, for knowing so little about her that he's ready to believe she would use tricks like that to grab his attention. She would, if she could ever muster up the courage or the sexiness, but she hates him for thinking it anyway.

Anger gives strength to her voice and she bites out, "No thank you, _Mr. Gray, _I'm perfectly capable of zipping up my own dress."

He's looking at her and she knows she looks a mess; her dress almost falling off her shoulders, her hair tousled, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. And then he asks quietly, "What happened to you."

The tone of his voice warns her, and the concerned- he needs to just _stop_, god- look in his eyes make realization sweep over her. She moves back, horrified, "Nothing happened. Nobody…did anything to me, if that's what you're thinking." And she knows that's exactly what he'd been thinking. "I'm perfectly fine." She ends coldly.

She turns again to go, but stops when she hears his voice. Close. Too close. "I can't let you go around like this, okay? It's just too...much. So I'm helping you with the zip, regardless of how much you don't want me to."

(She hates the way his velvet voice and his fingers on her back make her shiver. Just a little. Maybe not enough to be noticeable. Or maybe it was always noticeable. All the times she pretended she was different.)

He struggles a little with the final clasp, and she half closes her eyes, because he's standing behind her and can't see.

Her eyes fly open at the familiar click of heels on the pavement, and she knows with absolute certainty Tess has seen them.

/

[He first kisses her on a Tuesday.]

**...**

She waits all year to go back. And when she does get back Tess has new friends and hates her. 'Friends' with quotation marks. She was Tess's only real friend. Both of them know that. (Tess was her only real friend. Both of them know that too.)

_He's _there too, still fooling around with Jason and Nate. Probably having forgotten that last day, which seems etched onto her brain.

Till he looks over at her, or maybe the girl next to her, and smiles.

And as she smiles back, her eyes just a little too bright, she feels like strawberry ice. Like sunshine. Like a first crush. She's never been the best at descriptions, at story-telling, but she definitely feels like strawberry ice.

He ignores her all throughout the camp. Or rather he looks out for her, smiles at her and talks nicely to her. Mostly about Nate; he brings out Nate in every non-conversation they have till she wants to throw something at him. And she feels like she's his best friend's adorable kid sister.

He's with Tess. She knows that because Tess never loses a moment in telling everybody about it, her loud-for-your-benefit voice piercing through the air, till it stabs right through her.

And somewhere between Tess's vicious barbs and his inattention (goddammit, I've grown up, _look at me_) she breaks a little. Just a little bit. Just a very little bit, so she can make poetry out of it. If she could. Which she can't.

So she dances. Dances till she hurts all over, and can't think at night. About him and Tess. About being so cliché, they don't have a word strong enough for it._  
_

He catches her one day, and as she turns around to twist, her eyes land on him and she falls ungracefully.

"That was…stunning." stop looking at her like that "so; a music producer _and_ a dancer. You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

"There's a lot you don't know about me." She's definitely going to stop reading trashy romance novels; they have a way of taking over her tongue sometimes.

His smile widens in amusement, "Well I'm just going to have to find out then, won't I? Has Nate ever seen you dance?"

"No."

"Well he should. It's just too good to resist." And she quenches the bitter voice in her head which tells her _he _seems to be finding it all too easy to 'resist.' She's not sure what anyone is resisting in the scenario, but she's free to make it up in her head with his voice and his smile and his hands. She does that sometimes.

"I don't dance for people," she begins flatly, "Its personal. I wouldn't have continued if I'd known you were going to come in."

"Then I'm glad you didn't see me before."

Before she has a chance to look up, to catch his expression, _anything, _he kisses her. Almost curiously, his lips cool against her burning skin.

And he's gone.

She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her eyes wide, her lips tingling, her hair in complete disarray, her face red, shining with sweat, and feels more beautiful than she ever has before.

/

[He first touches her on a Tuesday.]

**...**

She's back at Camp, and she sees him looking at her new friend Mitchie in the way she's fantasized he would look at her. And nothing's ever going to be the same again.

Mitchie is everything she ever wanted to be. Pretty, kind, and most of all loved. She catches everybody's attention at camp with that intrinsic 'Mitchie' quality that she has. It isn't on sale. She'd know, because she looked.

She hates herself for having become such a jealous bitch that she can't so much as _look_ at her new best friend sometimes. But most of all she hates herself because, even after everything, she actually still can't hate Mitchie.

She sees Mitchie on the stage. The owner of that mysterious, beautiful voice and watches him staring at her, mouth open. There's no resistance. (Here's the thing she's learnt about herself; she tends to carry the metaphor through.)

And knows with absolute certainty he loves her.

In the after Jam party, she wears her shortest skirt, her tightest top, and her highest heels, and feels the glitter running riot through her veins.

They turn and stare, never having seen her like this. And she revels, because she's finally _(finally, finally) _the star. She combats their roving, appreciative eyes with an inscrutable smile, and dances just that much more provocatively.

(And breaks just a little bit more when she catches Tess's incredulous eyes and Mitchie's concerned gaze mirroring the same in his. Breaks at the irony, because these people whom she hates this minute are the only ones who know her.)

So she turns and runs. (Away.)

He finds her curled up in her favorite hide-away spot on the beach.

"He's not worth it." She's reminded of the first day he ever talked to her.

"Who isn't?"

"Whomever you're doing this for."

She laughs at the irony, then stops, because it sounds too bitter. She doesn't want to be bitter at fifteen. That's not who she wants to be.

"Nate likes you just the way you are, believe me."

Her incredulous gaze meets his, "Nate?"

He can't hide the surprise in his voice, "Then who is it."

She looks down.

His voice, when he next speaks is filled with urgency, "Who is it? Look at me." He turns her head, "Caitlyn. _Look at me._" and his finger under her chin forces her to look at him. And whatever he sees in her eyes gives him the answer, and he reels back.

"Oh God."

She's curling further into herself. Desperately broken by this outright rejection. Because the only thing she had, hope, has been snatched away and now there's nothing left. She's empty.

(Some detached part of her know that later, maybe she'll look back and think something like _god, dramatic much? _But in the moment, she's too fifteen and too hurt and far too much in some kind of love.)

"Caitlyn…" and he needs to fucking stop saying her name.

"It's okay," her voice is forcedly light. "It's just a schoolgirl crush. I know you like Mitchie. I'll get over it. I guess I was just trying to get your attention, trying to look beautiful. I'm not so different after all, am I? Falling for the unattainable star. Someone pass me a book-and-movie deal goddammit."

"You _are _beautiful."

"Just not as much as Tess or Mitchie, right? No wonder you always treat me like a kid. Did you ever notice that Tess and Mitchie are the same age as I am? You didn't. Because Tess is challenging, and Mitchie's beautiful, and I'm still that twelve-year-old who runs about in oversized t-shirts. No wonder you don't want me. "

(She didn't say that out loud. She didn't say that out loud. _She didn't say that out loud._)

"Want you?" and this time she's startled because his voice. It's different. She doesn't know him well enough to know _why_. But she knows him well enough to know it's different.

"Believe me, I _want _you. Ever since that time I met you running, with your dress half open, the moonlight lighting up your hair, I _wanted _you." he's the poet apparently, even though she isn't; maybe he thinks in song and his words are always lyrics, she doesn't know. She wants to, though, if that counts, "I wanted to touch a _thirteen-year-old._ And you couldn't tell what the tembling of my fingers against your skin meant, because you didn't want as much. I _wanted _you when I saw you dancing. Kissed you because I _wanted _to. Those over-sized shirts lined my dreams. Fantasies. _Fuck._"

He sounds sick. As if he hates himself. And she's embarrassed. It's here; the confession of something she's never dreamed, and she's embarrassed. And she wants him to stop because she knows she'll never be able to go back after this. All she'll do is screw up the story in her head because she's not a story-teller.

"I _want _you right now. Like all those other guys at Camp. My eyes ran all over you, violated you, just as theirs did. Which makes me all too human, too ordinary, doesn't it? How does it feel to know your idol has feet of clay?"

She dimly realizes that she should be more humiliated. That he saw right through her façade of indifference to the pathetic person she's become underneath.

But she isn't.

Because she's a masochist. Or maybe because she deserves to be allowed to want too. It shouldn't just be him, she's just as real.

So she presses closer to him. As close as she can get. Closer than is right. Never quite close enough.

"_Dammit" _his voice is loud in the enclosed space. "Are you so stupid you still don't get it? I. Want. You. So stay away before I do something we both regret tomorrow."

"I won't." Is that her voice?

"Won't what"

"Regret it."

"I love Mitchie." He doesn't want to hurt her, and she loves him for it. In some way. With some kind of love. Maybe not all she'll ever have to give. But definitely most of what she has to give right now.

"I know."

"Nate loves you."

She could've guessed. Maybe she did. "I know."

"And."

"Tomorrow you'll be with Mitchie and I'll be with Nate."They don't really belong to anyone tonight. It's just as good to belong to the night as anyone else, she supposes.

He understands.

/

It's fumbling, and awkward and nothing more than his hand down her skirt. His leg pushing against hers, as his breathing grows harsher and his whispered words enter her mouth with his tongue. And this feels like a lot for something that isn't everything. That will never be everything. She feels so much, she thinks she might explode with just that.

She feels like any other girl with any other boy and it feels better than it should.

"what day is it," she says once, even though it feels like she shouldn't be able to speak through sensory overload.

"I don't know," his voice is muffled by skin, "tuesday, I think. Why?"

She laughs; high, bright, alive. "Just."

She knows he doesn't know it's their thing, but he's laughing too anyway and she can feel the vibration against her shoulder-blade and maybe there was never anything to live for but this moment.

And then she can't speak anymore apart from _yes, __just, god, please, _fragments of sentences she can't form,and there as never anything to live for but _this _moment.

(But, she'll live, and she'll find something worth living for after this. That's who she wants to be.)

/

When she gets back home, she throws out her life-size poster, her hands crinkling his grin, as it folds in half with the crease of the paper. Her wall feels empty without it, but that's okay. She'll find something to fill it someday. Not right now, where it's just as blank inside her as it is on her wall, but someday.

She never waits for Tuesdays anymore.

* * *

_It was pretty obvious I've never seen the movie, wasn't it? So excuse any OOCness. Although if there's some movie-verse detail that I've gotten wrong, do tell me. I'm very, very in love with Shaitlyn. I think I'm so partial to Caitlyn because of her 'Max' days in Suite Life. Considering all I've seen of CR are the two minute promos, and a summary from my friend._


End file.
